12:18pm Thursday 6th September 2001
The wedding of John and Sylvia Anderson at St Nicholas Church in Elstree, like many marriages during the Second World War, had to be arranged with haste in mind.
John, a soldier of the Coldstream Guards who had been stationed in Elstree, learned in November 1943 that his battalion would be sent to fight in a matter of months.
At the earliest opportunity he rushed back from his posting in Yorkshire to ask Sylvia, who lived in the village, if she would marry him before he sailed away.
Within six weeks the wedding took place, on January 8, 1944, and shortly afterwards John was engaged in preparatory training for the D-Day landings.
Sylvia, who lives in Masefield Avenue, Borehamwood, said: "He came back and asked me if I wanted to get married because no leave was being granted.
"He was stationed in Scarborough at the time and put in for special leave, so we actually got a week together."
Sylvia, at the age of 17, was living with her father, a landscape gardener, and mother in a house in Elstree Hill North when the war broke out in 1939.
She became a Civil Defence volunteer, along with her mother, while her brother joined the RAF and her sister joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service.
The Fifth Battalion of the Coldstream Guards arrived in Elstree in 1942, by which time Sylvia was working for an insurance brokers in Borehamwood.
Sylvia first met John, who was billeted in a house in Barnet Lane, during a whist drive at St Nicholas Church Hall, to which guardsmen had been invited.
After their wedding, the couple were only able to see each each other on a handful of occasions before John was on his way to France.
"He was away for a year before I saw him again, when he came home on leave," Sylvia said.
John, a non-commissioned officer who originally came from Northumberland, was mentioned in the local press in April, 1945 for his bravery.
He was hiding in a shallow trench in 'no man's land' one night when a German patrol moved by, and kept his nerve as a soldier lay within a foot of him.
Intelligence gathered by Sgt Anderson enabled his battalion to mount a successful attack on the same German patrol the following night.
John, who led his company's signallers, was later awarded the Croix De Guerre medal. His citation read: "On every occasion that his company went into action he showed great dash and determination.
After the war, he went on to become an electrical engineer, working for the Handley Page aircraft company in Radlett for 20 years and later De Havilland.
John died in 1995, leaving Sylvia and their two daughters.
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